An Unwilling Maid eBook

To which Miss Euphemia returned an affirmative, and
the whole party trooped back to the dining-room, Pamela
leading the way, and Huntington following her with
a half-mischievous smile curving his usually grave
mouth.

CHAPTER III

OLIVER’S PRISONER

“I don’t care anything about it,”
said Miss Moppet with decision. “It’s
a nasty, horrid letter, and I’ve made it over
and over, and it will not get one bit plainer.
Count one, two, jump one; then two stitches plain;
it’s no use at all, Miss Bidwell, I cannot make
it any better.” And with a deep sigh Miss
Moppet surveyed her sampler, where she had for six
weeks been laboriously trying to inscribe “Faith
Wolcott, her sampler, aged nine,” with little
success and much loss of temper.

“W is a hard letter,” said Miss Bidwell,
laying down one of the perpetual stockings with which
she seemed always supplied for mending purposes; “you
will have to rip this out again; the first stroke is
too near the letter before it;” and she handed
the unhappy sampler back to the child.

“It’s always like that,” said Miss
Moppet in a tone of exasperation. “I think
a sampler is the very devil!”

“Oh,” said Miss Bidwell in a shocked voice,
“I shall have to report you as a naughty chit
if you use such language.”

“Well, it just is” said Moppet;
“that’s what the minister said in his
sermon Sunday week, and you know, Miss Bidwell, that
you admired it extremely, because I heard you tell
Pamela so.”

“Admired the devil?” said Miss Bidwell.
“Child, what are you talking about?”

“The sermon,” said Miss Moppet, breaking
her silk for the fourth time; “the minister
said the devil went roaring up and down the earth seeking
whom he might devour. Wouldn’t I like to
hear him roar. Do you conceive it is like a bull
or a lion’s roar?”

“The Bible says a lion,” said Miss Bidwell,
looking all the more severe because she was so amused.

“I am truly sorry for that poor devil,”
said Miss Moppet, heaving a deep sigh. “Just
think how tired he must become, and how much work he
must have to do. O—­o—­oh!”—­a
prolonged scream—­“he certainly has
possession of my sampler”—­dancing
up and down with pain—­“for that needle
has gone one inch into my thumb!”

“Come here and let me bind it up,” said
Miss Bidwell, seizing the small sinner as she whirled
past her. “How often must I tell you not
to give way to such sinful temper? And talking
about the devil is not proper for little girls.”

“Why not just as well as for older folk?”
said Moppet, submitting to have a soft bit of rag
bound around the bleeding thumb. “I think
the devil ought to be prayed for if he’s such
an abominable sinner—­yes, I do.”
And Moppet, whose belief in a personal devil was evidently
large, surveyed Miss Bidwell with uncompromising eyes.

“Tut!” said Miss Bidwell, to whom this
novel idea savored of ungodliness, but wishing to
be lenient toward the child whose adoring slave she
was. “Miss Euphemia would be shocked to
hear you.”